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The world’s first, full-service conservative Internet broadcast networkFri, 09 Dec 2016 15:01:00 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.116302432Video: Is Israel’s IDF the world’s most moral army?http://hotair.com/archives/2015/12/08/video-is-israel-the-worlds-most-moral-army/
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/12/08/video-is-israel-the-worlds-most-moral-army/#commentsTue, 08 Dec 2015 19:01:51 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=3886595To quote Vincent Vega, “That’s a bold statement.” It’s a claim that Col. Richard Kemp, commander of British forces in Afghanistan and an observer to the 2014 war in Gaza, defends in this latest video from Prager University. Kemp makes his argument based on two factors — the reason Israel goes to war (self-defense) and its conduct of war when conflict erupts. Despite claims of widespread war crimes and atrocities, Kemp insists that the IDF’s actions saved lives at risk of their own:

After repeated warnings from Israel to stop, the Israeli Air Force finally conducted precision strikes to halt the rocket-fire. And the IDF advanced into Gaza to destroy a network of terror tunnels that Hamas had constructed to attack Israeli communities near the Gaza border.

The IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping millions of leaflets, broadcasting radio messages, sending texts and making tens of thousands of phone calls. Let me repeat that. The Israelis called Gazans on their cell phones and told them to leave their residences and move to safety. Never in the history of warfare has an army phoned its enemy and told them where they are going to drop their bombs.

Many IDF missions that could have taken out Hamas military capabilities were aborted to prevent civilian casualties, increasing the risk to Israeli citizens and soldiers.

Kemp compares this to Hamas’ strategy, which deliberately used civilians as shields and as propaganda devices. The reason this strategy works, Kemp argues, is because Hamas knows that Israel wants to avoid civilian casualties:

Hamas deliberately positioned its military assets among the civilian population, hiding weapons in schools and hospitals, and placing rocket launchers alongside apartment buildings, then forced those civilians to stay in areas they knew would be attacked. They also instructed their people to report the lie that every Gazan killed was a civilian, even if they were actually fighters.

And if there were no civilian deaths, Hamas made them up! Numerous Internet sites show Palestinians elaborately staging sniper victims and smashed ambulances, among other phony horrors. It’s so common there’s even a term for it — Pallywood, as in Palestinian Hollywood.

Ironically, it’s the leaders of Hamas themselves who best understand the extraordinary measures the IDF will take to protect innocent civilians. They take full advantage of Israel’s decency and adherence to the laws of war.

Kemp concludes with this strong endorsement of the IDF and its practices:

No army takes such risks in order to protect civilians as the Israeli army does. I say this as a professional soldier. I say it because it’s true. And people who care about truth should know it.

Later today, Col. Kemp will be my guest on The Ed Morrissey Show, which starts at 4 ET. We’ll discuss his assessment of the IDF, the common allegations made about it, and the difficulties of militaries aligned with Western culture when fighting those which aren’t. Be sure to tune in.

Update: I changed the headline from “Israel” to “Israel’s IDF.” As one commenter put it, “Is Israel an army?” Er … no.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2015/12/08/video-is-israel-the-worlds-most-moral-army/feed/223886595Arab-Israeli reporter hits Arab leaders for ‘horrific and deafening silence’ on recent violencehttp://hotair.com/archives/2015/10/16/arab-israeli-reporter-hits-arab-leaders-for-horrific-and-deafening-silence-on-recent-violence/
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/10/16/arab-israeli-reporter-hits-arab-leaders-for-horrific-and-deafening-silence-on-recent-violence/#commentsFri, 16 Oct 2015 21:21:55 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=3880758Lucy Aharish is an Arab-Israeli reporter for i24news, where she became the first Arab presenter on a Hebrew-language television network. Recently, she commented on the recent rise in attacks against Israeli citizens from Palestinians, one of which was covered by Guy where a Palestinian ran into a crowded bus stop and brutally hacked a rabbi to death with a meat cleaver. The attacker was soon shot and killed by police. Guy added that Palestinian leaders are “blessing” these attacks, even though Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, said he was withdrawing from the Oslo Accords, which established the goal of creating a two-state solution.

Aharish also said there was “a horrific and deafening silence” from some Arab leaders, who are doing nothing to quell the violence–and are “adding fire to the environment instead of understanding that once it will calm down, we will be the ones to pay the high price.” She added how the Second Intifada took a heavy toll on Israeli Arabs and the Palestinians, and that this behavior will only lead to more of the same without learning from past mistakes. She also added that even if the status quo is broken on the Temple Mount (she admits that in reality it hasn’t, but if it had), she doesn’t understand how that justifies any killings.

And of course, Aharish also said that frustrations with the peace process, which is what some Palestinian leaders are saying have resulted in the spike in violence, aren’t legitimate reasons to begin killing innocent people. The regulations regarding visiting and praying on the Temple Mont for Muslims, Jews, and Christians has been an ongoing political problem. Nevertheless, Abbas has refused to condemn the attacks. In fact, he blames Israel for their steeping up security measures, saying the Jewish State is carrying out “field executions,” which he threatened to bring to the International Criminal Court. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the accusations lies.

Over at National Review, David French delved into the Temple Mount controversy that’s rumored to be the cause of what might be the third intifada. He cites Ruth Margalit of the New Yorker, who reported that the attacks could be rooted in the ongoing political problem, regarding the holy sites, which allows Jewish visitors on the Temple Mount during certain hours, but prohibits non-Muslim Prayer. There are rumors that there are plans to change these rules, but that’s been denied. Moreover, French added:

Palestinians are furious, with “moderate” Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas declaring, “The Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is ours, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is ours, and they [Jews] have no right to defile it with their filthy feet.” He went on to encourage martyrdom, saying, “We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every martyr will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah.”

In other words, when there is a shared holy site, Palestinians demand exclusively Muslim faith practice. And if they don’t get it, they’ll kill innocent men, women, and children until you relent. Let’s be clear — this is crazed, anti-Semitic religious intolerance, and Israelis are expected to “respect” this intolerance at the risk of being stabbed to death on a bus.

Hundreds of soldiers fanned out in cities across Israel on Wednesday and authorities erected concrete barriers outside some Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem in a stepped up effort to counter a monthlong wave of Palestinian violence that has seen near daily attacks.

Despite the escalated security, two assaults were reported Wednesday — the stabbing of a 70-year-old Israeli woman outside a crowded Jerusalem bus station and the attempted knifing of police officers outside the Old City.

The enhanced measures came as Israel struggles to contain the spiraling violence and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces heavy pressure from hard-liners in his governing coalition to stamp out the attacks. The Palestinians called the new measures “collective punishment” that would only further enflame tensions.

The military’s deployment of six companies to back up thousands of police marks the first implementation of steps approved by Israel’s security Cabinet early Wednesday, which also include stripping attackers of their Jerusalem residency rights and demolishing assailants’ homes. The Cabinet also authorized police to impose closures on centers of friction and incitement in Jerusalem.

Israel has been unable to stop the attacks, carried out mostly by young Palestinians apparently acting spontaneously with no affiliation to or backing from organized militant groups.

Yet, it’s safe to assume that this situation won’t be deescalating anytime soon.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2015/10/16/arab-israeli-reporter-hits-arab-leaders-for-horrific-and-deafening-silence-on-recent-violence/feed/293880758Video: IDF intercepts Gaza-bound flotilla — and suggests they sail to Syria next timehttp://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/29/video-idf-intercepts-gaza-bound-flotilla-and-suggests-they-sail-to-syria-next-time/
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/29/video-idf-intercepts-gaza-bound-flotilla-and-suggests-they-sail-to-syria-next-time/#commentsMon, 29 Jun 2015 18:41:16 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=3867989A four-ship flotilla to Gaza has become a three-ship pleasure cruise and round trip, after the IDF stopped and boarded the lead boat on its way to Gaza. The boarding, unlike one a few years ago, was peaceful, and the IDF has commandeered the boat to the Israeli port of Ashdod after finding humanitarian supplies on board — which would have gone to Gaza through either Israel or Egypt anyway. The flotilla wanted to protest the Israeli blockade on Gaza, a blockade that should have made a lot more sense to outside observers after the war Hamas launched last summer on Israel. The other three ships turned around and went back to their port of origin:

Israeli naval commandos intercepted a protest ship at sea bound for Gaza on Monday and diverted the vessel toward a port in Israel. The Israelis said no one was injured in the operation.

The Swedish-registered Marianne of Gothenburg was attempting to enter Israeli-controlled waters in the Mediterranean Sea and deliver aid packages to Gaza. Aboard were crew, journalists and activists, including Israeli Arabparliamentarian Basel Ghattas and former Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki.

The activists were protesting Israel’s maritime blockade against the coastal enclave.

Israel maintains a complete air and sea blockade of Gaza and a partial blockade of goods and people through two land crossings. Israel forbids Gaza to have an airport or seaport, except a small fishing harbor. Gaza fishermen are restricted to venture no more than a few nautical miles from shore.

Other ships have attempted similar runs to beat the blockade, including a Turkish-organized vessel in 2010 that was intercepted at sea by Israeli commandos in a raid that left nine activists dead and soured once-close relations between Israel and Turkey.

EuroNews had a correspondent on board, and reports on the interception:

Benjamin Netanyahu had a greeting prepared for them, delivered by the commandoes when they boarded the lead ship. “It seems you got lost,” the Israeli Prime Minister told the voyagers, suggesting that they may want to offer some humanitarian assistance to the Syrians instead, where the Assad regime murders its own people on a regular basis. “By the way,” Netanyahu points out, “the volume of equipment that has been sent from Israel to Gaza is more than 500,000 times larger than the your boats that you are arriving on,” and adds that they could have sent their humanitarian aid through Israel at any time (via Jeff Dunetz):

Welcome to Israel!

It seems you got lost. Perhaps you meant to sail to a place not far from here – Syria. There the Assad regime slaughters his people every day with the support of the murderous Iranian regime.

Despite that, here in Israel we are dealing with a situation where terror organizations, such as Hamas, are attempting to harm innocent civilians. Against attempts like these we are defending the citizens of Israel in accordance with international law.

Despite that, Israel assists with the transport of humanitarian supplies to Gaza – 800 truckloads a day, more than 1.6 million tons of supplies this past year. The equivalent of 1 ton per resident of Gaza.

By the way, the volume of equipment that has been sent from Israel to Gaza is more than 500,000 times larger than the your boats that you are arriving on.

Israel assists in hundreds of humanitarian projects via international organization including the establishment of medical clinics and hospitals.

But we are not willing to allow in weapons to the terrorist organizations in Gaza, as they have tried to do in the past, by sea.

Just a year ago, we stopped an attempt to bring in hundreds of weapons by sea, that were meant to harm innocent civilians.

There’s no closure on Gaza, and you are welcome to to transport, via Israel, any humanitarian supplies.

The sea blockade is in accordance with international law, and has received backing from the UN Secretary General.

If human rights were truly important to you, you wouldn’t be sailing in solidarity with a terror regime that executes, without trial, residents of Gaza, and uses the children of Gaza as human shields.

If you were to come to Israel you would be able to be impressed by the only democracy in the Middle East that is concerned with equality for all its citizens, and freedom of religion for all faiths. A state that operates in accordance with international law in order to provide its residents a secure life and its children to grow up in peace and serenity.

Think they’ll go to Syria next time, where people are truly being oppressed by a murderous regime? Naaaaah. It’s more politically correct — and a lot safer — to tweak Israel than it is to save lives where someone might actually shoot at you.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/29/video-idf-intercepts-gaza-bound-flotilla-and-suggests-they-sail-to-syria-next-time/feed/113867989Video: Hamas sets up and fires rockets near hotel, in Gaza residential districthttp://hotair.com/archives/2014/08/05/video-hamas-sets-up-rockets-near-hotel-in-gaza-residential-district/
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/08/05/video-hamas-sets-up-rockets-near-hotel-in-gaza-residential-district/#commentsTue, 05 Aug 2014 16:41:52 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=555426NDTV shot this video over the last two days, but didn’t publish it until after their reporters left for … well, the obvious reasons. Note the time of the rocket fire, too — 7:50 am, just ten minutes before the cease-fire began today. Could these have been the missiles that hit the West Bank?

It began with a mysterious tent with a blue canopy that bobbed up yesterday (August 4) at 6:30 am in an open patch of land next to our window. We saw three men making a multitude of journeys in and out of the tent, sometimes with wires.

An hour later, they emerged, dismantled the tent, changed their clothes and walked away.

The next morning – today – we woke to news of the 72-hour ceasefire but just before it was to take effect, the rocket next to our hotel was fired. There was a loud explosion and a whooshing sound. The cloud of smoke that rose was captured by our cameraperson.

This report is being aired on NDTV and published on ndtv.com after our team left the Gaza strip – Hamas has not taken very kindly to any reporting of its rockets being fired. But just as we reported the devastating consequences of Israel’s offensive on Gaza’s civilians, it is equally important to report on how Hamas places those very civilians at risk by firing rockets deep from the heart of civilian zones.

Indeed. This shows a deliberate attempt to bait the IDF into a response to take out the rocket battery, which would necessarily put everyone in the neighborhood at risk. That has been Hamas’ strategy all along, while threatening any reporters in Gaza who might file honest stories about that strategy. It’s a war crime, and it puts the responsibility of any civilian deaths on Hamas rather than the IDF.

This also demonstrates the relative futility of return fire on those rocket positions, though. The ease in which a temporary silo can be built, used, and then abandoned makes it almost impossible to defeat Hamas through reciprocal artillery fire. The only way to end the rocket fire is to devastate Hamas’ ability to re-arm itself and deploy those weapons. That is why a ground war was necessary, even without the tunnels going into Israel, and why the border crossings will have to either remain closed or severely restricted for the foreseeable future.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2014/08/05/video-hamas-sets-up-rockets-near-hotel-in-gaza-residential-district/feed/56555426IDF intercept shows Syrian army used chemical weaponshttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/08/26/idf-intercept-shows-syrian-army-used-chemical-weapons/
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/08/26/idf-intercept-shows-syrian-army-used-chemical-weapons/#commentsMon, 26 Aug 2013 12:01:19 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=276399A minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet publicly asserted that Bashar al-Assad and his forces used chemical weapons, and not the rebels in the Damascus suburb, and used them on a mass scale. International Relations Minister Yuval Steintz said it was “crystal clear” that the Syrian army used chemical weapons in the attack last week, arguing that this demonstrates why it is important to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons:

It is “crystal clear” that Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons five days ago in an attack that killed hundreds of people, International Relations Minister Yuval Steintz said Monday.

Although it is true that this is not the first time Assad has used chemical weapons, Steinitz said, saying he has used them two or three times in the past, this is the first time he has used them on a mass scale.

Steinitz, speaking at a press conference sponsored by the Jerusalem Press Club, said that this was the first time chemical weapons were used on a mass scale against civilians since Saddam Hussein used them two decades ago.

Picking up on a theme Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu first spoke of publicly on Sunday, Steinitz said that “what happened in Syria should remind us how dangerous it is if Iran is able to complete its military nuclear project and produce atomic bombs.”

Steinitz said that just as the Syrians used chemical weapons against their own people, the Iranians are capable of using nuclear weapons because, like the Syrians, they have “no moral compunctions.”

That won’t leave the US and the UN with too many options — and it won’t leave the Syrians with too many, either. Bloomberg notes that Assad is hoping Russia can bail Syria out of this jam:

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he expects Russia to ensure the neutrality of a United Nations probe into the alleged use of chemical weapons by his army in the war against rebels.

Assad, in an interview with Russian newspaper Izvestia, said the result of any U.S. military attack on Syria “will meet the same fate that the U.S. has met since its war in Vietnam: failure,” according to a transcript carried by the state-run Sana news agency.

Ahem. Perhaps Assad might take a look towards his east, where his former Ba’athist colleague used to reign with an iron and bloody fist — until ten years ago or so, when the US military showed up and eventually pulled Saddam Hussein from a hole in the ground and handed him over to his victims. He could look at Libya, too, where the US indeed shot itself in the foot, but that didn’t provide much comfort to Moammar Qaddafi.

Sniper fire hit a vehicle used by a U.N. chemical weapons investigation team in Syria multiple times on Monday, according to the United Nations. The team “returned safely back to the government checkpoint,” a U.N. statement said. The team is replacing the vehicle and will return to the area, it said.

It’s possible that the snipers are rebels looking to stir things up. If the IDF has it right, though, it’s also possible that it’s the army doing the sniping, in order to dissuade the inspection team from checking the evidence left after the attack.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2013/08/26/idf-intercept-shows-syrian-army-used-chemical-weapons/feed/180276399Good news: Journalism museum to honor two members of Hamas TVhttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/10/good-news-journalism-museum-to-honor-two-members-of-hamas-tv/
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/10/good-news-journalism-museum-to-honor-two-members-of-hamas-tv/#commentsFri, 10 May 2013 22:41:23 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=259834Ever heard of Al-Aqsa TV? You may think you haven’t, but if you’re a longtime HA reader I’ll bet you have. They’re responsible for the charming children’s characters Farfour, the Jew-hating mouse; Nahoul, the Jew-hating bee; and Assud, the Jew-eating rabbit. Apart from their stellar children’s programming, they’re known for Holocaust revisionism and various forms of pro-terrorist/anti-semitic propaganda. Per Philip Klein, the Treasury Department designated Al-Aqsa TV as an arm of Hamas three years ago and therefore subjected it to U.S. sanctions imposed on officially recognized terrorist groups. (“Treasury will not distinguish between a business financed and controlled by a terrorist group, such as Al-Aqsa Television, and the terrorist group itself.”) There are dozens upon dozens of clips from the channel archived at MEMRI TV for being especially fragrant examples of televised jihadist filth.

Last year, two Al-Aqsa employees were killed by the IDF during its operations in Gaza. Were they “merely” terrorist propagandists, or actual terrorists themselves using the cover of media to carry out an attack? Doesn’t matter to the Newseum: They’re going up on the wall of honor for journalists killed in the line of duty. Just like Daniel Pearl.

“Hussam Salama and Mahmoud Al-Kumi were cameramen in a car clearly marked ‘TV,’” Newseum spokesman Scott Williams told the Free Beacon via email. “The Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers all consider these men journalists killed in the line duty.”

Middle East experts disagree with this assessment, however.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which combats anti-Semitism, said the Newseum has made a “shameful decision” to honor the terrorists.

“Duct Tape on car with the letters TV does not a journalist make,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center’s associate dean. “A shameful decision based on a falsehood that besmirches the true heroes of journalism who died while pursuing their mission of seeking and reporting the Truth.”

Via the Standard, the IDF wrote about these two last year after they were killed. The head of the network acknowledged at the time that all of his employees are “part of the resistance,” leading the IDF’s spokesman to wonder if that meant that “those carrying a camera during the day could be carrying rockets at night.” According to a Newseum spokesman who spoke to the Free Beacon, to be included on the memorial a journalist must have been “a contributor of news, commentary or photography to a news outlet; an editor or news executive; a producer, camera operator, sound engineer or other member of a broadcast crew; or a documentary filmmaker.” Evidently Hamas TV falls under one of those categories. Which raises a question:

Exactly. If Hamas TV is a legit journalistic endeavor, why isn’t Inspire? If these two qualify as journalists, why isn’t Anwar al-Awlaki, who allegedly came up with the idea for Inspire, a “news executive”? Why isn’t Samir Khan, who quite probably wrote the bomb-making instructions used by the Tsarnaevs to kill people in Boston, an “editor”? One of the main critiques of the White House for targeting Awlaki is that they’ve never gone public with evidence that he was planning actual terror attacks rather than preaching jihadi propaganda. If propaganda is “journalism,” put him up on the memorial too. Let’s see the Newseum really own its standards by including a name the general public will recognize.

Update: Excellent point by Klein. If you wanted to encourage Hamas to carry out terrorism in the guise of “media coverage,” this is a dandy way to do it:

This is problematic, because in the past, Hamas has been caught storing and firing rockets directed at Israeli civilians from residential neighborhoods, schools and hospitals. The signal being sent by Newseum to Hamas (and terrorist groups everywhere) is that as long as they plaster “TV” on a vehicle, it should be considered off limits for attack. They can use this tactic to transport weapons and terrorists during wartime, putting nations such as Israel in the difficult position of either firing on vehicles marked “TV” or putting their own civilians at risk.